Like any language or dialect, Southern American English is characterized by certain features related to how words are pronounced and arranged in a sentence, as well as what words are actually used. These linguistic features can be read about in detail on the following pages: Phonetics and Phonology: Phonetics is the study and classification of speech sounds, and phonology is the study of the relationships between speech sounds. In other words, how do you pronounce certain sounds? How does that pronunciation change in context? Grammar: Formally known as "syntax," grammatical structures can vary by dialect as with any other linguistic feature. How do you arrange your words in a sentence? This page also contains information about prosodic features, which relate to patterns of stress and intonation in a language and/or dialect. What sounds in a word or phrase do you emphasize? Do you use specific pitch patterns over the length of a sentence? Lexicon: A dialect's lexicon is the vocabulary unique to that dialect. What words do you use to describe something? Do you use specific turns of phrase that might not be found elsewhere? Phonetics & Phonology of Southern American English Phonetics is the study and classification of speech sounds, and phonology is the study of the relationships between speech sounds. Like any language and/or dialect, speakers of Southern American English demonstrate a particular combination of features that make up what we recognize as their accent. While these are by no means all the linguistic features of SAE, they comprise of a few that are easily recognizable and can also be attested to within the Digital Archive of Southern Speech. Words that are highlighted and underlined in blue open a window to YouTube, where samples of each feature can be heard from the DASS. PIN/PEN Merger: One of the most famous features of Southern Speech is the "PIN/PEN" merger. Essentially, this feature works exactly as it sounds: there is a "merging" of the vowels in the words pin and pen so that they may basically sound the same. The "merged" vowel is actually closer in pronunciation to pin. Though this feature is so recognizable and stereotypical of Southern Speech, increased education in the southern United States has led to some decline (Thomas 14). The video below provides an example of the merger in action. Which do you hear: pin or pen? In context, the speaker is actually saying "That's a pin," but when the phrase is isolated, it can be difficult to tell the difference. Notice the writing under the transcription: this is an example of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) at work. Each symbol corresponds to a separate sound, and makes it easy for linguists to understand exactly how a phrase is pronounced. This is especially handy when working with other languages, or when the spelling of a word is not intuitive. All three clips below demonstrate the PIN/PEN merger. Other words affected by this feature include tin/ten, mint/meant, and bin/Ben. Do you display this phonetic characteristic in your own speech? Monophthongization: Another heavily-studied feature of SAE, monophthongization is a vowel shift changing the pronunciation from a dipthong to a monophthong. A "diphthong" is a sound formed by combining two vowels into one syllable, such as in nine. If you listen carefully, you can hear the vowel in nine as a combination of the "ah" in Amish and the "e" in me. A "monophthong" instead is a sound formed by only one vowel, such as in keep. This means that when monophthongization occurs, other people might pronounce a vowel as a diphthong, but those who use Southern Speech pronounce it as a monophthong, elongated the first vowel instead of pronouncing the second. Monophthongization can occur in other dialects of English, but is most widely recognized as part of SAE. In the following video, the first two speakers monophthongize the word five, while the last two speakers do not. Do you hear the elongated "ah" sound instead of a transition to the "e" in me sound? Do you monophthongize in your own speech? Triphthongization: Instead of combining two vowels into one syllable as in monophthongization, triphthongization is the changing of a monophthong to a triphthong, with the pronunciation of three different vowels instead of one. This is part of what we understand as the "southern drawl" in words like mouth, dress, etc (Thomas 4). Diphthongization can also occur, which is the same process but with extension to two vowels instead of three. The video below shows four examples of triphthongization; three with the word dress, and one with guess. Often it is difficult to hear that actual triphthong because of the speed of the speaker, but notice the progressive "eh," "ee," "uh" sounds in the vowels of these words, especially when spoken slowly. Do you have triphthongization in your own speech? Non-rhoticity: Non-rhoticity is the lack of pronunciation of the "r" sound. We heard this feature widely in the stereotypical British accent, but it can occur in specific environments in Southern Speech as well. This feature is most common in unstressed syllables, like in letter. It's also frequent in the last part of a syllable, such as word-finally (four and here) and pre-consonantally (hard and fourth) (Thomas 15). Non-rhoticity is most common in plantation regions. It was once the preferred pronunciation (called "prestigious" in linguistics), but is now looked down on (called "non-prestigious"). As with most linguistic changes, women have led this change over time. This increase in rhoticity so that now "r" does get pronounced more often only applies to white Southerners. For African-American speakers, their varieties are largely still non-rhotic (Thomas 16). Alternatively, in the speech of older speakers, some words such as idea and those with the same vowel as goat (the second vowel in hollow, for example) are pronounced as ending in an "er" sound (Thomas 13). This is even documented in the changed spelling of hollow to holler in some areas of the south. The first two speakers in this video display non-rhoticity on the word four, while the second set of speakers do not. Do you hear how in the first two clips, the speakers pronounce a long "oh" sound instead of the "r"? Is your own speech style rhotic or non-rhotic? MARY/MERRY/MARRY DISTINCTION: These three words are pronounced different by many Southern speakers, with the same vowels as play, bet, and cat, respectively. This tendency used to be prevalent among most Southerners, though in the modern day, these words have lost their distinction so that the vowel is pronounced the same as in square (Thomas 15). Listen carefully to the sound clips in the video. Notice how the speaker pronounces mary, merry, and marry slightly differently. Do you have the same distinction in your own speech? Or do you pronounce these three words the same way? WHICH vs. WITCH: The sequence spelled as "wh" as in which used to be pronounced as "hw" in the South rather than as "w" as in witch. Better-educated speakers were more likely to distinguish the two (Thomas 19). This feature is now not as a prevalent as it used to be, and is not unique to SAE, but has persisted there longer than in other dialects (Thomas 5). Another feature of Southern American English concerning "w" is its deletion in the words one and was, such as in young'uns and little'un (Thomas 18). A variation of the which/witch distinction is also called the whine/wine distinction; the "w" and "hw" sounds follow the same pattern, but in a different environment of sounds. The first speaker in the video below pronounces white and wife differently, which you can hear in the first two clips. The speaker in the second pair of clips does not show the whine/wine distinction. Finally, the third speaker in the last set of clips does not differentiate between which and witch, meaning that they also do not have this phonetic feature. Examples of this SAE characteristic can be difficult to find as they gradually disappear from peoples' speech styles. Do you differentiate between which and witch and whine and wine? Or are they homophones? "G"-Dropping: A highly recognized feature of white Southern speech, the suffix -ing may actually be pronounced as just "-in". The change occurs at a particularly high rate among lower-class males and in informal speaking styles. The first speaker in the video below drops the "g" from his speech on the word going. The second speaker does not. Which way do you pronounce words like going, moving, fixing, etc? Phonetic variants within individual words are also found in SAE. Get may be pronounced as rhyming with pit, just as the same as gist, and radish more like reddish. These patterns are more commonly found in the speech of older, less-educated speakers. In younger speakers, grease is often used as a verb (as in "grease the pan for dinner") and naked pronounced with the first syllable the same as in the word neck instead of an "a" sound (Thomas, p. 6). Grammar (syntax) of Southern American English We're all familiar with grammar, or the way words and phrases come together to make a cohesive sentence. In linguistics this is called syntax. Syntax is another feature of languages and dialects that varies, and the syntax patterns of Southern American English are no different. We'll focus on three major syntactic constructions of SAE here: Might could: This phrase, used in sentences like "I might could fix the bumper" means "maybe I could do it" to express uncertainty and politeness (Bernstein 109). Y'all: A famous feature of Southern American English, y'all is a contraction of you and all that distinguishes between singular and plural second-person references. In other words, it is the plural of you, used in sentences such as "Y'all need to be home by seven for dinner." Y'all is becoming more and more popular nationwide because of its practicality. Use by non-Southerners increased from 44% in 1994 to 49% in 1996 and by Southerners from 79% in 1994 to 84% in 1996 (Bernstein 107). Fixin' to: This phrase, as in "I'm fixin' to go to the grocery store," meaning "about to," expresses the "intentioned to do something within a relatively short period of time" (Bernstein 114). We can find "fixin' to" spoken most commonly in Texas and lower Mississippi (Bernstein 115). Lexicon of Southern American English Dialects don't just encompass how we pronounce words and how we arrange them in a sentence; what words we choose also aligns us with a particular speech style. Southern American English has its own vocabulary, called the lexicon. You're probably already familiar with some examples of Southern lexicon: saying buggy instead of cart, the phrase "bless your heart," and crawdads instead of crawfish. We ran across many words like these while listening to interviews, and the table below shows a small sample of the most unique and recognizable ones. This is by no means a comprehensive list of the word choices that speakers of Southern American English make, but there are lots of other books and articles on the subject, including Whistlin' Dixie by Robert Hendrickson. How many of these words do you recognize? Table displaying lexical items unique to Southern American English Word Alternative Forms Definition Ain't Are not Popular contraction meaning "are not" Antigodlin Lopsided; at an angle Ash pone Type of cornbread made in the ashes of a fireplace Baygall Area of swampy land in the South Blowed Blown Colloquial past tense form for "blow" Boothill Cemetary Brung Brought Colloquial past tense form for "bring" Catty-corner Catty-wampus Askew; positioned diagonally Chifforobe Wardrobe Chillun Children Chiseler Trickster; swindler Chitlins Chitterlings Food made from the boiled and fried small intestines of a pig, served with apple cider vinegar and hot sauce Clabber Clabbered milk Thick, sour milk Clingstone peach Peach variety which has seed stone that is difficult to remove. Typically has a lighter color and lower moisture content Cooter Freshwater turtle Corndodger Type of cornbread that is fried, baked, or boiled as a dumpling Cowcumber Cucumber Either dialectal form of "cucumber" or another word for a magnolia tree Cribble Coarse flour or meal Croker sack Burlap or mesh sack Doubletree Whippletree; whiffletree Type of plow for two mules Feist Dog; mongrel Flambeau Torch Frogstool Toadstool Kind of mushroom Galluses Suspenders Goozle Gozzle Throat; Adam's Apple Gully Washer Extremely heavy but short rainstorm Haint Ghost Hisself Himself Hominy Ground corn for making grits Hotcakes Pancakes Hunkers Haunches, as in to "get down on your hunkers" (squat) Hushpuppies Deep-fried ball made from cornmeal-based batter Jackleg Yardax Incompetent; unskilled; usually used in reference to a "jackleg preacher" or "jackleg lawyer" Janders Jaundice Jew's Harp Jaw harp; mouth harp Small metal instrument Lapniappe Small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of purchase Mayhaw Wetland fruit commonly used in jelly Mercurochrome Merbromin Obsolete brand name for an antiseptic Middling Cut of pork Muscadine Grape variety native to the Southeastern United States Mushmelon Muskmelon Cantaloupe Overplus Surplus Pandowdy Deep-dishes apple dessert Peckerwood Woodpecker Pilon Gratuity given by tradesmen to customers settling their accounts Play-pretty Toy for a young child Podunk Small, dull town Pully-bone Wishbone Quadrille Square dance routine performed by four couples Scrooch Crouch; bend Scuppernong Variety of muscadine grapes (see above) Shivaree Mock serenade/parade with kettles, pans, horns, and other noisemakers given to a newly married couple Shumac Sumac Singletrees Wagon axle Somerset Somersault Soo Soo-ey Onomatopoeia call to bring in pigs Spicket Spigot Splo Moonshine Spoonbread Cornbread with the consistency of pudding Stud horse Male breeding horse Tater Potato Thataway "That way" Touchous Overly sensitive Towsack Burlap sack Triple-tree Type of plot for three mules Website developed by Bailey Bigott (UGA BA 2020, MA 2021).
